AdvisorShares Weekly Market Review – Week Ending 3/13/2015

Highlights of the Prior Week

Deflation In The USA

Macro

On Friday the Producer Price Index (PPI) printed at -0.5% which was the fourth monthly decline in a row. This creates a quandary for the Federal Reserve Bank at their meeting this week because it wants to hike interest rates in the next few months. Of course part of the equation is the economy’s presumed ability to stay close to the Fed’s 2% inflation target which it has not been able to do. While lower prices are usually a positive for consumers, the data may be signaling a problem with demand which in turn becomes a problem for growth. This should not be too shocking given the sluggish economic performance in much of the developed world.

The European Central Bank began its asset purchase program last week which pushed yields down significantly and also moved the needle in the currency market. The US Ten Year Treasury Note fell most of the week in apparent sympathy closing at 2.11% down from 2.24% the week before. The German bund yield fell to 0.26%, the French OAT now yields 0.50%, ten year debt in Spain and Italy each yield 1.15% and Swiss ten years moved slightly further into negative territory at -0.04%.

The euro’s decline against the US dollar was just shy of 3.5¢ which is a large move for developed market currencies but consistent with the year to date action in which the euro has fallen 16¢ against the greenback. The British pound fell more than 2% against the dollar and the dollar gained slightly against the yen.

Domestic equities had a deceptively volatile week, deceptive for the lack of market moving headlines. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.57%, the S&P 500 gave up 0.87% and the NASDAQ moved further from that 5000 milestone to tune of a 1.12% decline. Oddly, the Russell 2000 gained 1.17% with all of the lift coming on Thursday.

Foreign equity markets were mixed. On the upside; Germany up 3.04%. France up 0.86%, Shanghai up 4.06% and the Nikkei added 1.49%. The FTSE 100 fell 2.48%, the Hang Seng gave up 1.41% and in Australia equities dropped 1.43%.

Gold drifted lower on the week while West Texas Intermediate Crude got crushed, giving up 8.8%.

ETF News & Data

Last week was the busiest of the year for new funds with 13 coming to the market. Included in list were seven corporate bond funds from iShares, a broad based Chinese equity fund and three equity funds from Direxion in partnership Valueline.

There were various foreign equity funds, equity hedged and unhedged, at the top of the creations list last week but number one was a dividend growth ETF from Vanguard with $1.5 billion. The SPDR S&P 500 was tops on the redemption list at $3.2 billion. There were also large redemptions from several bond ETFs as well as from interest sensitive equity market segments.

Interesting Reads

Aeon takes a look at How Luck Works and does so with a little bit of a Law of Attraction perspective.

Lucky people, it seems, are go-getters. ‘You can see how someone who believes in stable luck will be more motivated to pick difficult goals and then stick with them.’

Sports

ESPN reported that Michael Jordan’s first pair of NBA game worn Nikes will be auctioned with estimates valuing the shoes at $50,000. That seems a little low to us for early Jordan game-worn memorabilia. A fun fact from the ESPN coverage of this story;

Jordan was paid $500,000 a year for five years to wear Nike shoes. In order to get the final two years of the deal, the company had to sell at least $4 million worth of Air Jordans in Year 3. The first Air Jordan shoes hit retail in March 1985 at $65 a pair. By May, the company had sold $70 million worth.

As for the sectors of the S&P 500, five outperformed the broad benchmark – Telecom, Energy, Financials, Materials and Discretionary. The remaining five – Industrials, Technology, Staples, Healthcare and Utilities – each underperformed. The dispersion between the top-performing and bottom-performing sectors was roughly 10.59% this week, with Telecom outperforming all, and Utilities coming in last.

The AlphaBaskets blog provides frequent market insight and commentary by AdvisorShares Investments, LLC, created by AdvisorShares and other leading active managers. AdvisorShares Investments is an SEC-registered investment adviser and the investment adviser to the AdvisorShares actively managed ETFs. The views expressed on AlphaBaskets should not be taken as investment advice or a recommendation for any of the actively managed ETFs advised by AdvisorShares.